NAUGATUCK, Conn.- For 40 years,
the Portuguese community in Naugatuck
has celebrated St. Paio, a patron saint, and the celebration has evolved into
the biggest social event of the year for the 6,000 Portuguese and
Portuguese-Americans who make up 20 percent of the town's population.

St. Paio is the patron
saint of the northern seacoast town of Torreira
in Portugal, where most of the
Portuguese in Naugatuck
came from, and the transplanted festival, which occurs every year around Labor
Day, is normally three days of dancing, drinking and general celebration for
the Portuguese, tourists and townspeople alike.

But last fall's love feast
turned to trouble. ''The whole incident was regrettable,'' said Mayor John
Letts.

''It awakened a sleeping
giant,'' said Joseph Fonseca, the Vice Consul in the Portuguese
Consulate in Waterbury, who is a resident of Naugatuck and sort of an
unofficial mayor of
the Portuguese community.

What happened was that the
celebrants, about 2,000 or so, spilled out of the Club Uniao Portuguesa, the
Portuguese Union Club, into the streets. A fight started between two young men,
only one of them Portuguese, and he from out of town, and the police were
called. Two officers responded.

The police officers -
''young officers,'' said the Mayor; ''rookies,'' said Mr. Fonseca - found
themselves in a hostile crowd, insults were exchanged, and the officers called
for reinforcements.

Other officers responded to
the ''officer in trouble'' call, and the incident escalated. The state police
were called. They closed the festival, and several Portuguese, organizers of
the festival, were arrested.

''That galvanized the whole
community,'' said Duarte Alves, an accountant who works for the state and came
to Naugatuck from Portugal 10 years ago.

Mr. Alves is the secretary
of a newly formed political action group, the Portuguese-American Polical
Action Committee. It is the first such group in the state, and perhaps the
first in the nation dedicated solely to representing the interests of
Portuguese and Portugese-Americans. It formed as a result of the incident at
the Portuguese Union Club.

''Our goal is that the
Portuguese community will be recognized as a social, economic and political
entity,'' Mr. Alves said.

''There was a group of us
all along who felt that we needed better representation,'' said Frank
Rodrigues, the president of the newly formed group. ''But we never got anything
started.

''But this time, people
felt there was a terrible police overreaction,'' he said. ''We decided to stop
talking and start doing.''

Traditionally, said Mr.
Fonseca, who holds dual Portuguese and American citizenship, the Portugese in
America have been hard-working and non-complaining, in large measure because
there was little tradition for democratic protest in Portugal, and as a result
they were regarded with a kind of paternal noblesse oblige.

''They always say we are
peaceful, hardworking and law abiding, and you can eat off the floors of our
houses,'' he said. ''It's true and I think that is the way they want it.''

But indeed, concedes Mr.
Fonseca and others in the Portuguese community here and perhaps elsewhere,
there has been a reluctance to confront authority - indeed, even to swim to the
mainstream.

''That Portuguese don't
want to become involved is a fact,'' he said.

Indeed, in Naugatuck, about half the residents of
Portuguese extraction are not citizens, and a large number speak English
poorly, or in some cases not at all.

''We are 20 percent of a
population of 30,000, and half are not citizens,'' Mr. Alves said. ''One of our
objectives is to conduct a census and determine just how many are not
citizens.''

Once such a census is carried
out, organizers say, the group will work with the schools and city hall to
create classes to help people become citizens.

''We are going to promote
classes to naturalize our noncitizens,'' said Mr. Fonseca. ''Once they are
citizens, they will become voters, and once they are voters they can become a
political organization.''

At the moment, he said, the
movement is local, but organizers hope it will expand statewide to involve the
about 70,000 Portuguese and Portuguse-Americans who now, partly by choice, have
little political voice For his part, Mayor Letts says he is delighted by the
prospect, though he says he is not prepared to make any public apology for the
incident at the festival of St. Paio.

''We will just work to make
it much more successful next year,'' he said.

A version of this article
appeared in print on January 5, 1990, on page B1 of the New York edition.